A symbol of "Europe"

The last time I looked seriously at Galileo, the EU's GPS vanity project, was in April 2008 when I was disputing the commission's then latest claim - that €3.4 billion of our money would be enough to get the system up and running.

The figure, like the system, was pure moonshine, I wrote. That €3.4 billion was nowhere near enough to get the full constellation launched and operational - €10 billion was closer the mark, with additional through-life costs to maintain the system.

A few months previously, I had carried a report from Der Spiegel that the project would cost at least €5 billion and perhaps even €10 billion. Spiegel had added that a secret German government study had concluded the overall cost would rise by €1.5 billion even under optimum conditions.

Now, guess what? Bloomberg has reported a claim by Le Monde that Galileo will need another €1.5 billion "on top of the already budgeted €3.4 billion", to become operational in 2013.

Needless to say, the Italian commissioner now in charge of the project, Antonio Tajani, declines to confirm the figure, saying the amount of the extra funding needed will not be finalised until September.

Then, that is hardly a surprise – the project has been built on a foundation of lies and deceit from word one. In November 2007, it was going to cost €2.4 billion. And in order to gain member state approval for the project, in 2001 the commission gave its "solemn guarantee" that "no more public money would be needed after 2007".

Three years later, the EU is still putting its hand out for more money – even after raiding the CAP budget (pictured) - and the cost has doubled (with no end point in sight). If ever there was a project to symbolise the "success" of the European Union, this has to be it.

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The Lazarus project

"I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die".

Well, the defence ministers of the seven countries mad enough to want to buy the thing certainly believe in it. Way beyond the fourth day, the Airbus A-400M has risen from the dead, and is on its way to becoming a real aeroplane. Certainly, we're getting to the point where we wish the damn thing would fly, as we're getting sick of endlessly posting computer graphics to illustrate posts on it. The one above is the real thing, by the way – firmly earthbound.

For the non-blog readers to get to know what is going on, though, they will have to go to Reuters or even the New York Times, or the BBC website. I don't know what it is about these European projects, but the British media never seems to report on them. It was the same with Galileo – they just drop off the edge.

Anyhow, at a meeting between the seven yesterday, all parties – including the UK - decided not to cancel their orders and instead renegotiate the whole contract, starting afresh as it were, with plans to "relaunch" the programme in December, when it is hoped that the prototype will make its first flight.

This is the projects that is already €5 billion over budget and nearly four years behind schedule. Its customers have already spent €5.7 billion on it, the parent company EADS has written off an additional €2.3 billion and it is costing €100 million a month without ever having left the tarmac.

Yet our own defence procurement minister Quentin Davies is right up there, despite the huge problems the delay has created for the RAF. He has agreed to enter the renegotiation "on an equal footing" with it six partners and is saying "I hope we can save the programme."

It can still be cancelled in December, if the negotiations break down, but that is looking increasingly unlikely and, if this goes they way all European projects seem to go, the only outcome of the further talks will be that it is going to cost us a whole bundle more. And when it is actually going to be delivered to the RAF is anyone's guess.

The huge irony is that, whatever it costs, a Tory government will most likely have to pay for it, while it will be a Tory defence minister who will be have to explain why, in a few years time, the RAF is critically short of airlift. And Tory turncoat Mr Quentin Davies, by then on the back-benches, will be able to reflect that it was a Conservative government which bought into the project into the first place. What comes round, goes round.

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Galileo "ill-conceived"

To absolutely no surprise – to readers of this blog, at any rate - the European Court of Auditors have condemned the EU's Galileo vanity project as "ill-prepared and badly managed".

"The programme," it says, "lacked a strong strategic sponsor and supervisor: the commission did not proactively direct the programme, leaving it without a helmsman."

The 27 member states also take some stick - for promoting their own industries first and foremost. "Owing to their different programme expectations, member states intervened in the interest of their national industries and held up decisions," complains the court of auditors. "The compromises made led to implementation problems, delays and, in the end, to cost overruns."

The audit examined the factors in the failure of the concession process and for delays and cost overruns of technological development, concluding that the original public-private partnership plan was "inadequately prepared and conceived" not to mention "unrealistic".

The Galileo Joint Undertaking - set up in 2003 and scrapped in 2006, when the commission took over direct management - was given the task of supervising Galileo's technological development activities but "was seriously constrained by governance issues, an incomplete budget, delays and the industrial organisation of the development and validation phase."

If the project is to succeed, says the court, the commission "must considerably strengthen its management of the programmes." And "should the EU resolve to engage in other large infrastructure programmes, the commission must ensure it has access to the appropriate management tools," it added.

A chastened (not) commission spokesman acknowledged that there had been delays and cost overruns – he could hardly do otherwise – and then, in classic bureaucratic style, declared: "In hindsight things could always be done better... but we are happy to accept the recommendations of the court in order to be able to get on with the project."

Needless to say, the commission at this stage cannot even quantify the cost or time overruns, but the spokesman is confident that the first operational satellites should be launched next year. That, according to the court of auditors, makes it something like five years late already.

Interestingly, remarkably few media outlets have carried this story, continuing the silence on the downside of the Galileo project. This contrasts with the huge publicity afforded by the media when the first test satellite was launched. No doubt, when the first satellite staggers into the air, the media will be right there again, and the betting is that you will not hear the word "ill-conceived".

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Mother Europe is watching you

It was always going to be the case that once they had the technology, we were all going to be placed under constant surveillance. And the nightmare is coming closer to reality.

According to The Guardian, our puppet government is backing an EU project to install a "communication box" in new cars to track the whereabouts of drivers anywhere in Europe.

Needless to say, the scheme, known as the Cooperative Vehicle-Infrastructure Systems is being sold on its 'elf 'n' safety benefits, with the kindly EU officials telling us that it will significantly reduce road accidents, congestion and carbon emissions.

However, as The Guardian points out, ministers are aware that the system could be seen as a "spy in the cab" and "may be regarded as draconian". Thus, the focus on the "more benign technology" is being used to "enable potential adverse public reaction to be better managed".

But behind the benign exterior is the true agenda – the system paves the way for national road tolling and, since the system is planned to send positional data to government control centres, it can be used for speed enforcement and other law enforcement purposes.

Not stated by the paper, but evident in the EU documentation, is the other agenda. The system is to rely on the EU's Galileo satellite positioning system, providing an income stream for this vanity project which would otherwise be totally uneconomic.

By introducing a compulsory tracking system, fitted to every car, the EU will be able to recoup enough fees from member states to pay for the project.

Our puppet government is currently denying that the system will be made compulsory, but the scheme developers envisage that it will be made mandatory "for safety reasons". The rest will follow, as night follows day and, once in place, every time you climb into a car, your movements will be tracked – and the bills will follow.

Currently, it is anticipated that the system could be introduced from 2012 onwards, which makes our only safeguard the probability that Galileo will not be up and running by then. But when it does eventually fly, it will take on an extra symbolism – the surveillance state will have finally arrived with a vengeance.

Mother Europe will be watching you.

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A half-billion donkey

Lord Stoddard has asked how much the EU's Galileo global positioning system is costing us. He doesn't get a direct answer but, based on what he is given, I calculate our liability (not including hidden costs) to be £500 million up to 2013.

Although, with the money being sloshed into the financial system, "billions" are becoming part of our daily currency, so a mere £500 million is – by comparison – chicken feed. However, it is still real money and it is being spent for no gain whatsoever, providing absolutely nothing at all at the moment, and nothing that GPS will not give us for free.

Nevertheless, I am sure no one objects to paying that amount of money as a symbol to the glory of the European Union. Cheap at twice the price, I would have thought. But then, since the commission wants £6 billion for operation and maintenance costs, on top of the £2.3 billion design and development costs, we will indeed have to find twice as much again - and a little bit more besides.

But hey! It's only money!

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Yesterday's news

The website publicservice.co.uk, which calls itself "the information portal for the public sector", blandly tells us that: "Galileo to be given military purpose." This is one of the outcomes of the debate in the EU parliament on von Vogau's own initiative report on which we reported earlier. Thus we are told that:

The European Parliament has confirmed that the Galileo satellite system will be made available to the military and security services of EU member states to enhance their communication capabilities.

It also called for member states to adopt standardised communication technologies that can be used for common capabilities for both defence and security purposes. This applied to satellite-based intelligence, surveillance and warning equipment, unmanned air vehicles, helicopters and telecommunication equipment and air and sea transport. The parliament also called for a common technical standard for secure communications.

When you think, going back, how hotly it was denied that Galileo had any military applications. It was a civilian project under civilian control, etc., etc., repeated ad nauseam. And now it just plops out in an obscure journal, natural as you like, as if it was perfectly uncontentious and hardly worth a comment.

However, if we cast our minds back to various statements on this issue, we can recall Adam Ingram who on 19 January 2005 told the House of Commons:

On Galileo, let me just say that it will be a civil system, under civil control. That has been confirmed by successive EU Transport Councils. The UK has emphasised that that should remain the case. In December … the Transport Council stated that any decision to alter the civil status of Galileo would have to be agreed unanimously by member states under pillar 2 of the EU treaty. That is the constitutional structure under which Galileo exists. It is quite clear that what we have laid down with our NATO partners will protect the integrity of that system. The global positioning system, not Galileo, is currently the basis of NATO operations, and will remain so into the future. Galileo will be a civil system. That has been expressed time and again in the Chamber and elsewhere.

Whatever happened to the Transport Council statement that any decision to alter the civil status of Galileo would have to be agreed unanimously by member states under pillar 2 of the EU treaty? I somehow don't remember any official announcement of a change in status based on a decision by member states.

So it is, another EU project based on a lie, reinforced by our own politicians who so glibly repeat the lies. Galileo always did have military applications and it was always the intention that it should be used to strengthen the ESDP. But, when the lie is admitted, nothing is said, nothing is done. We just go on with our lives, and the "project" marches on, built on its foundation of lies that, in the fullness of time, it cannot even be bothered to conceal.

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Guardians of our freedom

Our man in Brussels, namely Bruno Waterfield, is hot on the trail of the latest in the long saga of the euroweenies' attempts to create a European Army.

The latest plan, he writes - which has "influential support in Germany and France" – is to set up "Synchronised Armed Forces Europe", or SAFE. This, he tells us, is a first step towards a true European military force.

It isn't the first step, of course – the "colleagues" have been trying for decades - but this certainly is another step down the road towards European military integration, giving teeth to the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP).

What brings it to the forefront is an "own initiative" report going in front of the EU parliament today, authored by one of our favourite "stage" Germans, MEP Karl von Wogau – a doyen of the European defence establishment. He has been at the forefront of the EU defence agenda for many years, one of his earlier reports setting out the objectives very clearly indeed.

In opposing – or even trying to understand – what is happening though, there is a conceptual problem. A "European Army" as such does not involve serried ranks of soldiers all done up with white gloves, tasteful cravats and blue berets adorned with the ring of stars. It is much more subtle than that, and our Karl is right in there, making it happen.

The key word is "inter-operability", a concept we've been writing about for ages, going right back. This is in the frame with von Wogau's current report. He is looking for a "dynamic to further development of co-operation between national armed forces so that they become increasingly synchronised". For "synchronised", read "inter-operable".

For modern armies to fight together, they must have common structures, command and control systems, equipment, doctrines and much else. If these are too different, disparate national armies on the same battlefield are simply a disorganised rabble – even worse than at present. However, the crucial point is that, if the armies of the EU member states are properly "synchronised", this makes them a single army in all but name. The don't need to wear the "ring of stars" or blue cravats.

Further to the point, since the level of commonality will be unique to those formations, they will not be able to fight with anyone else … like the United States. "SAFE", therefore, is a powerful weapon of integration.

Von Wogau makes absolutely no attempt to hide his agenda – in that, at least, he is honest. He points out in his report before the EU parliament today that the EU "needs to develop its strategic autonomy through a strong and effective foreign, security and defence policy. "This is needed," he says, "in order to promote peace and international security, to defend its interests in the world, to protect the security of its own citizens …".

This, in a nutshell, sums up all that is objectionable about the "project". The ESDP is needed to promote the EU's interests and protect the security of "its own citizens". This is the supranationalist agenda writ large, completely submerging the interests of nations, yet using their resources to do so.

The core of the "SAFE" idea definitely promotes that agenda, suggesting a "European statute for soldiers" which would govern "training standards, operational doctrine and freedom of operational action." It would encompass issues relating to "duties and rights, "as well as "the level of equipment quality, medical care and social security arrangements in the event of death, injury or incapacity."

Crucially, "SAFE" also embodies the principle of "a Europe-wide division of labour in military capabilities." That would mean, to take an extreme example, one country would supply the infantry, another the tanks, yet another the artillery, one other the communications systems, while others would provide the logistics, catering and the medical services. Command and control would, of course, be provided by the EU.

That actually encapsulates the principle of "interdependence", one which has applied for decades to the EU's industrial policy. Applied to the ESDP, it would mean that no single member state would have autonomous armed forces, capable of acting independently – which is exactly what the "colleagues" have in mind.

The actual plan, as you might expect, is a lot more devious. They are talking about sharing military intelligence gathering, common communications systems, shared (i.e., EU managed) satellites - including Galileo, which is freely quoted as a model - all key elements without which modern armies can't operate.

The "European Army" thus becomes a group of nationally-funded formations each so deficient in one or more key capabilities that they can only operate when they come together as a whole, under the EU umbrella. It's not what each army has, so much as what it doesn't have - not what they can do but what they can't do.

And then the individual national components are so heavily "synchronised" that they can only work with each other, and not anyone else - back to inter-operability again. They can fight within Nato, but separately, but only as part of a European component - alongside but not with US or Canadian forces. The idea of Nato forces being "synchronised" goes out the window.

Although this issue is emerging just now with von Wogau's report, it was actually rehearsed in much more detail late last year by that other "stage Hun", Hans-Gert Pöttering.

Speaking at the "Seventh Congress on European Security and Defence" in Berlin in November, he went well beyond the idea of "closer co-operation between autonomous national armies" and identified precisely the issues we have highlighted: "quantum improvements in the areas of joint command structures, equipment and operations."

To achieve these aims, says Pöttering, "we need a link between the current situation, characterised by armed forces which are partly interoperable, but still organised on a purely national basis, and the distant objective of a European Army."

Note those words carefully: a link between the "current situation" and "the distant objective of a European Army". That link, Pöttering tells us, is "SAFE". Not least, "it has positive associations and is easy to remember". Thus, he asserts, it "can help us move the work of developing integrated European structures forward."

One cunning little plot to move that agenda "forward" is an agreement between the Netherlands and German armed forces which now allow their reservists to fulfil their duties in the other country's army. The Belgian armed forces are already open to soldiers from all the EU Member States and thus "stand as a model for all 27 armies in Europe."

That is the eventual aim, whereby "European citizens" will be able to join the armed forces of any member state, as of right. Since an oath of loyalty to any one state would be a barrier to entry, that would have to go. National military regulations would be replaced with the "European soldiers' statute".

Another jolly little scam is to expand the "institutional exchange programme for professional soldiers". Known as Erasmus-Militaire, this would increase the number of exchanges between member state armed forces, thus giving the process "an entirely new dimension". Before too long, any ambitious officer will learn that he has no prospects of promotion until he has been on his euro-exchange posting to acquire his programming.

None of this will be compulsory in the first instance. Von Wogau and Pöttering both are talking about voluntary "opt-ins". This allows countries like the UK to deny they are participating while, all the time, gradually implementing provisions.

One thing you can see happening, for instance, is the "European soldiers' statute" surreptitiously being absorbed into Queen's Regulations. They will keep their name but will be gradually emptied of unique national content and "synchronised" with the European model. That is the way our provincial government does things.

Bruno Waterfield cites Geoffrey Van Orden, who opines on the whole idea. He complains that British ministers are "in denial". They are, he says, "sleepwalking towards a European army and seem to have little awareness of what is going on."

That isn't exactly what is happening. In the Brown government, there is actually little enthusiasm for Euro-militarism. But within the MoD and elsewhere there is a caucus of strong Europhiles. They are forever pushing at the boundaries. Every now and again, they are thrown a chunk of meat to keep them quiet. The trouble is, they devour it and come back for more.

Some – but by no means all – of this agenda will find its way into the British defence system and lodge like a virus, ready to break out when the time is right. The strongest antidote is Afghanistan – where our close operational relationship with US forces means that we have to be more "synchronised" with the Americans than the euroweenies.

After all, it was Afghanistan campaign that did for the British contribution to the ERRF. End the campaign in Afghanistan and there is nothing to stop the euroweenies running amok.

By that measure - as long as we are fighting them alongside the Americans - that makes the Taleban the best guardians of our freedom – of which our independent armed forces are a central part. That is a very sobering thought.

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The joke's on us

It's a while back since we had a look at the European vanity project, aka Galileo, but like everything the euroweenies do, it doesn't go away just because you're not looking at it.

What brings us back is a highly entertaining reversal of fortunes, where the vainglorious ambitions of the Euros seem to be colliding with the inscrutability of their former strategic partners, the Chinese.

To appreciate what turns out to be a huge irony, we have to go back to 2001 when the Galileo system was in its early stages of going nowhere, and the US started raising the alarm about possible interference with the established US GPS system.

This was more or less resolved in 2004 and eventually, by June 2007 a deal was cemented whereby the two systems would be compatible and could therefore share the sky in some sort of harmony.

Meanwhile, also to the consternation of the Americans, the euroweenies were doing a separate deal with the Chinese, bringing them on board as "development partners" for Galileo, with the very real risk that they would exploit the technology for military purposes.

The concern had its effect because, despite – or so they thought – the euroweenies milking them for €200 million for their stake in the project, the Chinese were frozen out of the management team which was to run the system.

In what now becomes a deliciously convoluted story, the Chinese meanwhile decided to develop their own Beidou navigation network from a regional system to a fully functional global network, comparable with GPS, Galileo and the Russian Glonas. That, as Taylor Dinerman pointed out in 2006, would raise exactly the same compatibility problems that had confronted Galileo and GPS, with potential interference between systems.

Now, as Asia Times and, more recently, Dinerman report, the Beidou system – now known as Compass - is steaming ahead, with the Chinese aiming to make it fully functional by 2015.

In setting up their system, Chinese representatives have informally resolved with the US potential problems with co-ordination of frequencies. Recognising the status of GPS as a "legacy" system with a prior claim to its frequencies, China is prepared to respect the status quo and not interfere.

Not so with the euroweenies, however, where compatibility issues between Compass and Galileo most definitely have not been resolved. With China's schedule now edging ahead on the launch stakes, the inscrutable ones are taking the view that it has equal rights to pick its operating frequencies as do the Euros.

The result is that Compass could end up interfering with Galileo's high accuracy Public Regulated Service (PRS) signals. This is the part of the system which will be available on subscription and will also be used for military purposes - not that it's a military system, of course. But, with the Chinese system up and running, PRS will be pretty much useless for military purposes unless China allows access to the frequencies.

Not content with this, the Chinese are also seeking to build into their system some "product differentiators" - enhanced capabilities and unique signals and/or services – which will give them a competitive advantage over Galileo and GPS. With their eyes on the lucrative Asian applications market, that will leave the poor old Euros decidedly in the cold.

To add to this jolly tale, the Chinese have also acquired sophisticated UHF-band satellite communications jammers and have probably developed indigenous systems, which today give them capacity to jam common satellite communications bands and GPS receivers. Galileo's card has also been marked.

The combined effect of these various initiatives is set to create even more difficulties for the Euros than they have experienced already, further diluting the attraction of a system that has been struggling to get off the ground. To add insult to injury, the Chinese have also made good use of the €200 million stake with which they bought into Galileo.

Having acquired considerable technical know-how from the Euros on developing ground infrastructures for satellite systems – as part of the "partnership" deal - all but about €10 million has been spent on application development and ground infrastructure in China itself. This technology is now being seamlessly integrated into the Compass programme.

While the Euros might have been under the illusion that the Chinese would move away from the US GPS system and join with their anti-American tryst, China has never had any real intentions of joining in. It has always had ambitions for its own independent system. The Chinese have got far more out of the "co-operation" with the Euros in terms of technical know-how, system management and market access than they ever put in, and are now ahead of the game.

The ultimate joke – if your sense of humour takes you that way – is highlighted by Dinerman. The Galileo system was originally intended by Jacques Chirac to prevent Europe from becoming the "technological vassal" of the Americans. With the frequency conflict, it has now produced a situation where the EU is going to be subservient to the Chinese.

Reports, says Dinerman, have it that the Euros are "very angry". It's a tough old world out there, and it looks like it's not getting any better for their pet project. It would all be rather funny if it wasn't for the fact that the British taxpayer already has better than a £200 million stake in the damn thing and we are going to have to pick up a hefty chunk of the bill when it tanks. The Chinese may be laughing – not that they would do so in public – but it looks like the joke is on us.

As for the poor benighted Euros, Dinerman has the last word. "Decades from now," he writes, "it may be that people will see Galileo as having been a wise investment, one that gave Europe a valuable tool with which to assert itself on the world stage."

Or perhaps not.

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They never give up

If ever there was a more unpopular policy – and demonstrably so, it is road charging. Over 1.8 million people signed a petition against it last year and there are no indications whatsoever that the mood has changed.

Like the "colleagues" and their accursed constitutional Nice treaty, however, this government won't take no for an answer, having just confirmed that it has commissioned technical trials on satellite-based road charging.

This comes via The Times which is reporting that hundreds of drivers are being recruited to take part in these trials, and also reminding us that this could result in charges of up to £1.30 a mile on the most congested roads.

The test runs, we are told, will start early next year in four locations and will involve fitting a satellite-tracking device to the vehicles of volunteers. An on-board unit will automatically deduct payments from a shadow account set up in the driver's name.

The fact of the trials has been confirmed by Paul Clark, the transport minister, which completely contradicts previous government statements suggesting that it had abandoned the idea of a national road-pricing scheme.

The idea of satellite charging last cropped up under Alistair Darling's watch – when in January 2006, we picked up an obscure report telling us that the Department for Transport had done a deal with "a major German firm", by name of T-systems. It had announced the foundation of a new subsidiary, Satellic Traffic Management GmbH.

This company had been set up specifically to develop satellite-based road toll charging technology and market it internationally and now, from The Times we learn that one of the trials four trials will involve up to 100 BT staff working at Martlesham, Suffolk. And BT is working with T-Systems, "the German company that collects tolls from lorries on 12,000 miles of autobahn."

At this time, trials will of course be based on the US GPS system – the "colleagues" not yet having got their own vanity Galileo project working yet. But, in the fullness of time, you can bet that the switch will be made and Galileo will take its rightful place at the heart of a European road charging system, with the UK a founding member.

Despite earlier, erroneous reports, there is nothing in writing on this – nothing you can pin down. It is all eminently deniable, right up to the point when the system goes into action.

Clark, however, is claiming that the trials are to be used to "help to create a pricing 'tool' that was most likely to be used first by local authorities." But the point about a satellite system, as opposed to localised "tag and beacon" systems, is that the infrastructure costs and management systems required only make sense if used as part of a national system. On the other hand, satellite charging is the only technology than can manage a national system.

Thus, we are seeing a continuation of the slow, insidious and fundamentally dishonest progression by government – in cahoots with the "colleagues" to introduce this system, as we always said it would.

Here, therefore, we have the consistent features of modern government – no matter how unpopular a policy, they will go ahead anyway and, no matter what the opposition, they will still go ahead. They never give up.

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A harvest of woe

The metropolitan (i.e., London) Times newspaper has finally picked up on the disaster that is the British harvest this year, several weeks after we already covered it (and here), taking our lead from the regional and farming press and our own sources.

Some of the locals in farming areas are also covering it, notably in Northumberland and Cumbria and another national on the case is The Guardian. Only that paper – typically – brings in the red herring of "climate change", although even it does not have the gall to suggest that this summer was the result of global warming.

Interestingly, it is The Times which brings in subsidies telling us that the situation is so bad that farmers are demanding urgent payment of subsidies to alleviate their plight. We are told that Stuart Burgess, the Government's "rural advocate", is to ask the prime minister to bring forward payment of subsidies due in December under the Common Agricultural Policy.

That, of course, is as far as it goes, with no elaboration of the fact that this is the only option left to government to assist farmers in which is generally recognised as the worst harvest on record. And this is indeed of very little assistance. All it does is help out with cash-flow problems, but that has the effect of stacking up problems for later in the season.

The harvest situation is, however, a classic example of why the farming industry does need government support. No other industry is required to make and repeat huge annual investments, with huge sums at risk due to influences (the weather) entirely outside their control.

What people do not seem to understand is that many farmers could make more money from their land by not farming. If we want them to continue growing food, then there is an extremely good case for state assistance in underwriting their risk.

Before we joined the loathsome EU (or EEC as it was then – with, I might add, the full support of British farmers) the system was known as the "deficiency payments scheme", which effective underwrote a minimum price for crops. Had this applied now, farmers would be recouping some of their losses.

However, the current EU scheme is known as "intervention", which kicks in when there is a surplus, buying up the excess of top quality grain for storage, and thus maintaining price levels. This year, there is no such surplus which means that none of the EU funds earmarked for price support will be spent.

At the end of the year there will be a cash surplus not a crop surplus. Some of the money will go on funding the EU's vanity project, the Galileo satellite navigation system. A billion or more will go on handouts to farmers in developing countries, further destabilising their agricultural economies, and some many be returned to member states. And more British farmers will go broke.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the EU for you. Aren't we lucky we are members.

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A perfect storm

One of the (many) stories sitting on my files to do was an article picked up from the front page of The Yorkshire Post on Saturday, developing our own report last Thursday on the dire state of the UK wheat harvest.

Coincidentally, the story was picked up yesterday by the Mail on Sunday and thence by Watts up with that.

This invaluable blog, quite rightly, got excited by the headline to the Mail which proclaimed, "Awful August has delayed this year's harvest but global warming is not to blame" – a distinct contrast to The Daily Telegraph piece in early July which did indeed seek to pin the wet weather on global warming.

But, while we can rejoice in sense returning to at least one newspaper, behind both the stories of a bad harvest lies a disturbing picture that could have serious consequences for British arable farming – and thus the rest of us – amounting almost to a perfect storm.

The particular problem, as we pointed out in our last piece, is not so much quantity but quality, especially with the wheat crop which has deteriorated severely as a result of the bad weather.

As The Yorkshire Post reports, this means that much of the crop will be fit only for animal feed. Yorkshire farmers alone could take a "hit" of £10 million as their produce is downgraded.

If that gives temporary relief to hard-pressed livestock farmers, who have seen feed prices escalate to record levels, it is bad news for consumers as high protein wheat for bread-making will have to be imported in some quantity, at a premium of £20 per metric ton.

However, the problem for farmers may be even worse than the headlines suggest, as events elsewhere in the world take shape. Here, the situation in the Ukraine is of special interest. The region, on the one hand has enjoyed a record harvest, up to 43 million tons from 29.3 million last year, with expectations of exporting a surplus of 17.5 million tons during the coming year. On the other hand, the crop has suffered what is described as "insect-related" problems, which is forcing about 70 percent of it to be used for animal feed.

This surplus on the world market is expected to drive down prices of feed wheat, creating an abysmal situation for British farmers. At a time when input costs – from diesel and fertiliser to labour – are all rising, they are now reconciled to prices which are unlikely to cover the costs of producing the harvest.

Small wonder, the YP is retailing sentiment from farmers that many of them will drop out of wheat next season. Some experts are saying this could lead to a shortage next year.

It is here, of course, that an agricultural support system could make the difference. Where prices have been driven below the cost of production, there is a classic role for farming subsidies, if for no other reason than to ensure the availability of supplies in the following season and to take the edge of shortage-induced price increases.

However, now that the EU – which has sole competence over our agriculture policy – has opted out of production support and is looking to cut subsidies over the next budgetary period, farmers are on their own. They are looking at reduced prices, increased costs and less state support.

Perversely, the cut in support will not filter back into reduced EU contributions or lower taxes as the EU has siphoned off some of the subsidies to pay for its vanity project, the Galileo satellite navigation system, while it is also proposing to hand upwards of $1 billion to developing countries to promote farming there – reducing, incidentally, export opportunities for British farmers.

The net result of all this is that British consumers will still be paying huge sums for an agricultural support system, but one that no longer functions, while also paying inflated costs for their bread and other wheat-containing foods, costs which are set to go up even further next year.

Somehow, this is not quite what either farmers or consumers expected when we first joined the EEC but, as the implications of yet another failed policy sink in, one wonders whether the farmers will finally see the light and round against the EU, which is now doing nothing but add to their woes.

COMMENT THREAD

The real agenda emerges

Unless it is about the misuse of MEPs' expenses or other venality, you can almost guarantee that the British media will ignore the EU parliament – although there are some exceptions.

Not so Deutsche Welle which noted last week that: "European Parliament Approves Military Use of Galileo Satellite", telling us that it approved "the bill" by a massive 520 votes to 83.

Actually, the paper is a little confused. It was not a "bill" but an "own initiative report" by German MEP Karl von Wogau – a man we have met before, a doyen of the "European" defence establishment.

An own initiative report carries no legislative weight but, as we have remarked before, von Wogau, is no ordinary MEP. He is a respected member of the German political establishment, a senior and active member of the EPP – the political group to which the Conservatives still belong – and an arch "federalist" who is at the leading edge of integrationalist thinking. His agenda very much represents the thinking and ambitions of the hard core supporters of European integration.

Therefore, his report does actually carry some weight, effectively representing a statement of the state of play, the EU's "shopping list" and an indication of the direction of travel.

The reference to Galileo is instructive, as it simply affirms that which we have been asserting for four years – in the face of constant denials that the programme was anything other than entirely civilian, for civil use only – that the only way the project made sense was for its military applications.

In many ways, this bland – largely unrecorded - affirmation by the EU parliament typifies the whole of the EU "project". Like the EU, the rationale of Galileo has been shrouded in lies, deceit and obfuscation and now, only when the "colleagues" have finally got their way, with the project under commission control and an EU budget line, do they shamelessly admit the truth, which had largely been acknowledged anyway.

But von Wogau's report goes far beyond Galileo and sets out the entire strategy for an integrated European space programme, taking in surveillance and communications satellites, and all manner of space hardware. These, he asserts, should be managed within the framework of a Union budget – to add to the €5 billion already set aside in the 2007-13 for space projects and defence – all dedicated to servicing the European Security and Defence Policy.

Without so much as a blush, von Wogau relies entirely on the constitutional Lisbon treaty, which formalises space policy as a Union competence, in anticipation of which, the "colleagues" already have a Space Council up and running.

How easily do they now claim that "an autonomous European Space Policy a strategic necessity," underlining the "importance of the space dimension to the security of the European Union and the need for a common approach necessary for defending European interests in space."

What is particularly bizarre about this whole affair though is the lack of interest by the British media – which maintains its indifference to this day – as a major new policy unfolds in front of its very eyes. Even when the "colleagues" are openly parading their military ambitions, and outlining their plans to commit billions in expenditure for something which, as yet, has no legislative base, there is almost complete silence.

Secrecy in EU affairs, there is not. But, given the myopia of the British media, there is no need for it. Even though in plain sight, the steady march of integration is ignored.

COMMENT THREAD

The propaganda flies

Nearly two years late, after a run of technical and financial problems, the EU's second (and last) test satellite in the Giove series was launched yesterday, the next step in getting their white elephant Galileo satellite navigation system up and running.

Even then, it is a month behind its revised, revised schedule, the launch actually having been booked for March of this year.

The satellite, officially named Giove-B, was put into orbit by a Soyuz rocket in Kazakhstan and is due to test technologies for Galileo such as a high-precision atomic clock and the triple-channel transmission of navigation signals.

Inevitably, as it soared skywards, its land-based sponsors launched a torrent of rhetoric (aka propaganda) to mark this modest achievement.

Despite the upgrades to the Navstar system planned by the US, which will deliver performance enhancements which will match or exceed Galileo capabilities (if the system meets specifications), the EU is still maintaining that its system will offer superior performance.

Furthermore, transport commissioner Jacques "Wheel" Barrot – in his last days before moving over to "Justice" – is putting it about that the system will be profitable.

To that effect, he cites predictions that the European market for personal navigation devices will be worth €135 billion, failing to mention that these consumer systems contribute nothing to the development or upkeep of the primary systems and, in any event, will be used primarily with the US GPS system.

It was precisely the lack of profitability – and the inability of the commission to offer any credible commercial model to private sector contractors which led them to pull out of the convoluted partnership deal with the commission but, according to the Reuters report, this decisive action – which precipitated a major crisis for the project – is dismissed as "industry doubts" over its (Galileo's) viability.

In fact, industry had no "doubts". It absolutely refused to have anything to do with the project unless it was taxpayer-funded, knowing that it cannot generate enough funds to make it a worthwhile commercial venture.

Nevertheless, Barrot is still twittering about "working on putting its products and services on the market in 2013," – a highly unrealistic date for commissioning the system, that is unlikely to be achieved, especially as the commission is still massively understating the overall costs.

Against the estimate of €3.4 billion, the true cost is likely to be in excess of €5 billion and possibly as high as €10 billion, for which the commission has yet to secure a line of funding. There are, therefore, going to be plenty more dramas and crises before we see the system operation, by which time the upgraded Navstar satellites will be flying, providing a free to end-user signal for all comers.

However, there seems nothing capable of shaking the commission out of its fantasy that Galileo will actually make money, leaving its claims totally within the realm of propaganda – about as credible as the EU project as a whole.

COMMENT THREAD

The lies and deception continue

Our government yesterday decided to commit €3.4 billion of our money to its vanity project, aka the Galileo satellite navigation system, thereby finally turning its back on its guarantee of November 2000 that "public financing in the form of subsidies" would not be needed after 2007.

The figure, like the system, is pure moonshine, €3.4 billion being nowhere near enough to get the full constellation launched and operational - €10 billion being closer the mark, with additional through-life costs to maintain the system.

This development, therefore, represents the latest in a long line of lies, deception and incompetence that stands as a glorious testament to the true nature of the form of government that constitutes the European Union.

Needless to say, because the decision has been taken by our real government in Brussels, rather than our etiolated rent-seekers in Westminster and Whitehall, the British media – other than the BBC website - has found itself incapable of reporting it.

The Houston Chronicle managed to carry the story, as well as the Chinese Peoples' Daily Online, but not the great British media. This remains as much in denial as to the true nature of our government as are our politicians (and political blogs), and prefers to wrap itself in the warm glow of domestic issues, in the manner of local papers reporting on the machinations of their local councils.

Not for our great fourth estate is there any wider horizon beyond the shores of its foetid "little England", which is of course why those lying, cheating bastards in our Brussels government (of which our own local government forms part) get away with so much.

COMMENT THREAD

A real world crisis

Even if the issue is by-passing most of the MSM, The Financial Times is on the ball, reporting on the growing crisis in the world's food supply.

Headlining its latest piece, "High food prices may force aid rationing," it records that the United Nation's World Food Programme is drawing up plans to ration food aid in response to the spiralling cost of agricultural commodities.

It is in the process of holding crisis talks to decide what aid to halt if new donations do not arrive in the short term, with Josette Sheeran, the WFP executive director, telling the FT that the agency would look at "cutting the food rations or even the number or people reached" if donors did not provide more money.

She complains that, "Our ability to reach people is going down just as the needs go up," warning that the agency's budget requirements were rising by several million dollars a week because of climbing food prices.

In a worrying development, the WFP is noting the emergence of a "new area of hunger" in developing countries. Even middle-class, urban people are being "priced out of the food market" because of rising food prices. The price jump in agricultural commodities – such as wheat, corn, rice and soyabeans – is having a wider impact than thought, hitting countries that have previously largely escaped hunger.

Hunger, Sheeran says, is now "affecting a wide range of countries", including Indonesia, Yemen and Mexico. Thus, the WFP, which normally provides aid in areas where food was unavailable is finding itself asked to help countries where the price of food, rather than shortages, is the problem.

Across the world, there are disturbing signs that the shortage is biting. In Egypt – which has had limited rationing for some time – the food rationing system for the first time in two decades. Pakistan has reintroduced a ration card system that was abandoned in the mid-1980s. Countries such as China and Russia are imposing price controls while others, such as Argentina and Vietnam, are enforcing foreign sales taxes or export bans. Importing countries are lowering their tariffs.

Nor is the price pressure abating. Soyabean prices on Friday hit an all-time high of $14.22 a bushel while corn prices jumped to a fresh 12-year high of $5.25 a bushel. The price of rice and wheat has doubled in the past year while freight costs have also increased sharply on the back of rising fuel prices.

In all, the world’s poor countries will have to pay 35 percent more for their cereals imports, taking the total cost to a record $33.1bn (in the year to July 2008, even as their food purchases fall two percent, according to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation.

On the back of that, the US Department of Agriculture has warned that high agricultural commodities prices would continue for at least the next two to three years.

In our insulated, comfortable existences in the developed world, there are, of course, no shortages. We have the wealth to buy food off the world market while others starve, and while the EU fritters away agricultural funds on its vanity project, the Galileo satellite navigation system.

Inevitably, through, food scarcity translates into political instability, a factor that most often intensifies food shortages and is the major cause of famine. And, while member state governments and the media prefer to bury their heads in the sand on this issue, the crisis is real enough and growing.

COMMENT THREAD

Mushroom government

At last, The Daily Telegraph has caught up with the crisis in the UK pig industry – an issue flagged up by The Scotsman on 15 February, when we remarked on the strange lack of interest shown by the general media – and, for that matter, the political blogging community.

True to form though, the Telegraph runs the story in the business rather than in the main news section (although it is flagged up in the "news in brief"), as if this was somehow of matter that was of interest only to the financial community rather than to every one of us.

Most striking of all, however, is that the long(ish) piece focus entirely on the local effects of the crisis. Nowhere do you see any mention of the overweight elephant in the room, the European Union, or any recognition that agricultural policy is an exclusive EU competence. And with such a absence of recognition, no clue is given to readers that the current crises stems – in part - from yet another egregious failure of EU policy.

The proximate cause of the crisis is, of course, the global increase in the price of wheat, which has doubled since last summer, but behind that is a series of errors and miscalculations on the part of the EU that is bringing an important industry to its knees – the Telegraph quite rightly telling us that it could be wiped out.

To understand why all this is happening, though, requires a basic knowledge of agriculture, agricultural economics, world food production patterns, European politics and – above all – the workings of the EU's common agricultural policy (CAP). This is a combination that defeats most writers in a newspaper which (in common with the rest) no longer sees fit to employ a specialist farming correspondent since its last one, David Brown, died prematurely.

Thus, in the hands of the generalists - in the context of the overall "dumbing down" to which newspapers have fallen prey – the emerging crisis merits attention only when it reaches a peak. But, without an ongoing background, the broader issues are far to complex to explain within the space limitations of a single report. The journalists thus resort to simplistic superficialities which do nothing to explain the issues. Even to attempt to do so would be far too complicated.

Returning to the main issue, the global increase in wheat prices – this to a very great extent was (and is) beyond the immediate control of any single agency and, therefore, was to some extent inevitable.

However, even then, that must be qualified. The looming shortage of food commodities has been well flagged up over a number of years and EU member states are substantial wheat producers in their own right, with overall production capable of influencing world prices.

Therein lies the first problem in that EU, driven by the memory of "grain mountains" of the '70s and '80s, and the attendant bad publicity, was committed to a long-term policy of cutting back agricultural production – while actually increasing CAP expenditure – and failed to see the shortfall coming. Thus, at the very time its policy was starting to "succeed" in cutting back production, the world was facing a production shortfall and increasing demand.

Secondly, as we have recorded may times on this blog, the EU allowed itself to be carried away with the idea that "surplus" agricultural capacity could be used to produce ethanol and bio-diesel, thereby adding to the stresses on the world market and driving up commodity prices further.

Then, in the shorter-term, as the global shortage crept up on it, the EU sold off its remaining intervention stocks, leaving the cupboard bare, and was extremely dilatory in reacting to the changing market conditions, only releasing some set-aside for production in this current growing season.

In the middle of all this is the pig industry – and also the poultry industry, milk production and the rest of the livestock sector. Classically, these are low-margin industries which struggle against cheap imports from producers who are not saddled with the same cost burdens - arising in the main from tighter welfare standards and other regulatory burdens. They have survived through ever-increasing productivity and by maintaining high quality.

However, with feed (comprising mainly wheat) accounting to up to sixty percent of their costs, they are uniquely vulnerable to increases in commodity prices. And with there inevitably being a lag in input costs and being able to recover losses through increased prices, the industry cannot cope with sudden, massive increases in their basic costs (which also include rising fuel, labour and regulatory costs).

It is here that the EU – as controllers of our agricultural policy – could have helped. Had it anticipated the rise in commodity prices, the commission could have encouraged production and, at the same time, pulled the early surplus into stock, using the intervention mechanism. It could then have released it selectively to feed producers, stabilising the prices and providing a price buffer to ease the effect of sudden price rises.

This is not so much "subsidy" in the classic sense, but a matter of stock management which, handled correctly, can be cost-neutral. On a rising market, the costs of buying into intervention can be recouped as the commodity prices rise.

But, charged with the management of commodity stocks, the EU failed dismally in this task and then, to make matters worse, creamed off "surplus" funds from the agricultural fund to pay for its vanity project, the Galileo satellite navigation system.

On the other hand, there is of course a valid free market case for leaving the farmers to their fate. Farmers, traditionally, are gamblers, punting on the prices of their harvests when they invest in sowing their crops. In the livestock sector, they can "drop out of pigs" when the pork prices are low and costs are high – as they are doing at the moment – and return when the financial climate is more benign. That has always been the way of farming.

This depends, however, on farmers being able to respond flexibly. In the livestock sector, though, EU-inspired regulatory costs are steadily increasing to the extent that the investments required to return to the market are getting to be prohibitive. Against that, the down-side risks are becoming too great and many who drop out of pig production in this cycle may never return.

For a time – again as is happening at the moment – we can rely on a plentiful supply of cheap imports. Inevitably though, as global commodity price rises feed through the system, the cheap imports will dry up and, without a healthy domestic industry to provide competition, we can be held to ransom by importers who know we have nowhere else to go.

Nevertheless, there is a good argument for letting the market prevail, and there is also an argument that government should take a strategic position, balancing national stocks against demand. In this role, it acts as a stockholder of last resort, to ensure that we are protected from food shortages and rapid price rises.

By contrast, there is no case for a hybrid system, part reliant on the market but with the overall management vested in government – which just happens to be in Brussels – where the management is so poor as to amount to dereliction.

That is the situation we are in, with the consequences that we end up paying twice - in our taxes to maintain the CAP and, as we face shortages and steep price rises, in the shops as well. But, as we count our pennies and more and more of us have to make the decision as to what to cut back in order to meet the mounting food bills, we will never know the true authors of our predicaments. Neither the media nor the politicians are telling us.

Thus are we ruled - "mushroom government" by any other name.

COMMENT THREAD

The contagion spreads

It started so simply, with a patsy question from Europhiliac Lord Dykes in the House of Lords yesterday, who asked when the government next intends to discuss the Galileo Project with representatives from the new Slovenian presidency of the European Union Council of Ministers.

Answering for the government was Labour apparatchik Lord Bassam of Brighton (pictured, left), which brought an intervention from UKIP peer Lord Pearson of Rannoch (pictured below right). He asked whether the noble Lord could "give the amount that has been raided from the agricultural budget to meet the cost of this project, against the Government's wishes?"

Parliamentary language is at its finest in the Lords, but the message from Bassam was clear enough: "… I cannot agree with the noble Lord when he asserts that there has been a raid on the agricultural budget to pay for it." In words, there has been no "raid" on the agriculture budget. Pearson was talking rubbish. Continued Bassam, "I understand that, although there have been disagreements and discussions about the budgeting process, there now is agreement and that a sensible way forward has been provided."

The only problem is that Bassam was, in parliamentary terms, "misleading" the House. Outside the hallowed portals, this can be expressed in more direct terms. He was lying through his teeth.

What is troubling is that Bassam was not only lying to Pearson, but his lie is so transparent. If nothing else, the EU does leave a clear paper trail of its activities and the documents on the current round of Galileo go back to the press release following the Transport Council meeting on 3 December last year, and the council conclusions, themselves.

Then there are the commission proposals which start with the original communication, the background staff document and then the final amended commission proposal of 19 September 2007, on which the council conclusion was based.

Formally referenced as COM(2007) 535 final, this was the Amended proposal for "a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the further implementation of the European satellite radionavigation programmes (EGNOS and Galileo)" and it proposed to increase the Galileo budget by an additional €2,100 million. As to the source, the document stated, "The funds are provided from unused margins in headings 2 and 5 for 2007 and 2008."

For those unaccustomed to "commission-speak" Heading 2 is the formal EU budget heading which "includes the common agricultural and fisheries policies, rural development and environmental measures, in particular Natura 2000." Heading 5 covers administrative expenditure for all institutions, pensions and the European Schools.

There is no need for a translation though. In a widely reported press briefing on 19 September, transport commissioner Jacques Barrot told reporters that "most of the money" needed to fund Galileo "could be found from the EU's agricultural budgets for 2007 and 2008 and the rest from funds earmarked for running the European Union institutions" – i.e., Headings 2 and 5.

"These margins," said Barrot, "are usable without the least diminution of the programmes concerned". For example, he added, a rise in world agricultural prices was reducing levels of subsidies paid to farmers.

This was reported by The Times, the BBC and then subsequently in the House of Commons Transport Committee report on 7 November 2007.

How appropriate it is, though, that when challenged about the funding of a project that is built on a foundation of lies, Lord Bassam should in turn lie to the House of Lords. At the very least, however, he owes an apology to Lord Pearson, the House – and to the nation.

COMMENT THREAD

Galileo costs to "skyrocket" - shock!

According to Der Spiegel, relayed in an agency report, the cost of the EU's Galileo satellite navigation system is set to skyrocket.

Instead of costing the €3.4 billion budgeted by the EU commission, it will cost at least €5 billion and perhaps even €10 billion. Spiegel adds that a secret German government study concluded the overall cost would rise by €1.5 billion even under optimum conditions. Any delay or unforeseen technical difficulty would only add to the cost.

Furthermore, these figures had been drawn up by industry and EU budget experts only weeks after the 27 governments had agreed to go ahead with the scheme, using "surplus" CAP funds to finance the deal. And, to add to the general deceit, while the EU is maintaining that the development phase for the system is over and has been paid for, a Galileo expert said many technical problems had not been solved and the research would have to be paid for from the construction budget.

Interestingly, in a piece headed "Lie in the sky" written in November, we wrote that it looked like the EU was understating the costs of the Galileo project. We noted that the US was investing $1.8 billion in just eight satellites in the GPS III range, upgrading its own Navstar system.

That put the potential US costs for an upgrade rather than a whole new system in the €5 billion range – well above the €2.4 billion then slated for Galileo deployment - an entirely new system. And the Americans already have their ground station infrastructure in place.

Still, there should be no reason for surprise as this whole project has been dogged by lies and deceit – rather like the European Union itself – right from the very start. After all, the commission itself, in order to gain member state approval for the project, in 2001 gave its "solemn guarantee" that "no more public money would be needed after 2007".

As always, the truth is a dispensable product when la gloire of the Union is at stake. But, if experience is any guide, Galileo will suffer the same fate as the original la gloire (pictured). But, by then, the money will have been spent.

COMMENT THREAD

Food security – the coming crisis

This is the time of year, in case you had not noticed, when the media goes into overdrive with its reviews of the last year and its predictions for 2008 – if for no other reason than – Pakistan apart – there is no other hard news that the media can be bothered with, and they have to fill the airwaves and the pages of their newspapers with something.

One listens, therefore, with only half an ear to the radio as the high and the mighty drone on with their prognostications and it was in that mode that I caught something on BBC Radio 4's From our own correspondent programme. It had gathered its foreign correspondents from near and wide, asking them each for their predictions for the coming year, but what made me sit up was blunt warning from the Asia correspondent that there would be "food riots in China".

By coincidence, England Expects picks up another strand of the same story, retailing a report in the Financial Times that China is to introduce taxes on grain exports "in the latest attempt to rein in food-driven inflation that reached an 11-year high in November."

From this we learn that exporters of 57 types of grain, including wheat, rice, corn and soya beans, will have to pay temporary taxes of between 5 and 25 percent. Furthermore, this move comes less than two weeks after China, the world's biggest grain producer, scrapped a 13 percent rebate on major grain exports in an effort to increase domestic supply and rein in inflation that hit 6.9 percent in November, well above the government's three percent target.

Elsewhere, we see from Xinhuanet that China's grain subsidies were up 66 percent in 2007, to 51.4 billion yuan (6.9 billion U.S. dollars). Despite that, production was short of demand, even with a harvest of more than 500 million tons of grain, the fourth consecutive year of growth.

Then, we also learn that Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has been visiting farms and rural enterprises in the northeast province of Shaanxi (pictured top and below right), while his administration is pumping money into land reclamation programmes in a bid to increase the amount of land available for cultivation.

On top of that, the influential Central Economic Work Conference has decided that that prevention of "current price increases from becoming evident inflation" would be a primary goal of macroeconomic control in 2008, leading the government to focus on "national grain security" and the continuation of boosting farmers' income next year.

To add emphasis to that message, Chinese Vice Premier Hui Liangyu on Sunday attended a ceremony honouring "advanced grain producers", when he urged for more effort to be devoted to agricultural modernisation.

Bearing in mind that China is by no means an open society, and has strict control over its media, the underlying message coming through is that there is a sense of crisis over food supplies. The BBC foreign correspondent may well be right in predicting food riots – otherwise one would not be seeing this huge concentration of effort by the Chinese government on the issue.

But, what applies to China also applies to the rest of the world yet, as England Expects remarks, none of the political leaders make any reference to the growing crisis in their New Year messages – despite the obvious and very real effects it will have on the economy and the poorer sector of our society.

As we have remarked many times (for instance here and here), this lack of engagement reflects the lack of engagement on the EU front, where European politicians have not even begun to address the seriousness of the situation. Instead, they have been raiding the CAP account to pay for their Galileo vanity project - a monumental act of folly.

Lacking political leadership, the food security issue is not being picked up in any serious sense by the national media, which means that when polling organisations like You Gov construct their questionnaires to discover what they think are the issues of importance to ordinary people, they fail to include issues like "food security" and "food inflation" on the list of options. Thus, as we saw in the survey for The Sunday Times yesterday, the top three in the list of concerns were, "anti-social behaviour", immigration and terrorism, with "global warming" coming sixth on the list (see below).


The bizarre detachment of this list belies the fact that the EU is still pushing ahead with its insane plan to demand member states meet a 10 percent quota for biofuels, despite even environmental groups warning that it will be a disaster.

Yesterday though, Christopher Booker in his column remarked that when history comes to be written, "2007 may well be marked as the significant year when it first registered that the disaster-movie threat posed to the planet by global warming might not be roaring down on us quite as predicted."

In the nature of scares – and such is the concern over global warming – these do not die out, as such. They are most often driven out, to be replaced by a greater or different concern. Thus, when the history of 2008 comes to be written, this may be the year when food security displaced global warming and the number one concern, as the reality of global food shortages finally struck home (although it may take a little longer).

With that realisation, one hopes, we will also begin to understand that successive British governments have transferred their powers to deal with such a crisis to Brussels, where agriculture is a sole "competence". Thus, as the crisis begins to bite, we will have the familiar but still unedifying spectacle of British ministers rushing off to Brussels to plead for relief.

There, one suspects, we may get short shrift. Although Britain is a major importer of food (bringing in some 60 percent of our annual requirements), other countries in the EU – most notably France – are net exporters. What will be catastrophic for the British economy, and the well-being of our people, will be good news for the French economy, which means we will be out on our own.

In addition to the shift in concerns, therefore, 2008 may well be the year – if the media wake up to the fact - when we as a nation realise just how much our governments have given away to Brussels, and the true cost of so doing… just at the time Mr Brown has agreed to give the EU even more powers.

COMMENT THREAD

Today's the day ...

...when Gordon Brown slinks off to Brussels to sign a treaty no one wants, few understand and for which most demand a referendum – which we will not get. In the absence of any voice, we are left to make the same sort of childish gestures that were made in the toy parliament yesterday (below).

In the real parliament the day before, others put it more eloquently, even if the net effect was the same. Of note was Richard Shepherd, veteran of Maastricht, who made one of the most moving speeches in the entire sequence of the debates on that treaty. Now he says:

… there is a sameness about these debates. …in this debate, in these proposals, now over 34 years old, in the strong drift towards the creation - or attempted creation - of a federal state, the same question nags away. Who governs? To whom is this Parliament accountable? It is not accountable, surely, to a Commission in Brussels. It is not accountable to institutions formed by others. It is accountable to the people who sent us here.

There was a joy, in that at the last election all three parties promised that the people should be invited - no, not invited, but should be given the right, which we would express by law - to take part in a referendum on this treaty. … Labour's 2005 election manifesto promised this:

"We will put it" - the European Union constitution - "to the British people in a referendum and campaign whole-heartedly for a 'Yes' vote".

That was the undertaking given by the Labour party - the Labour Government, in fact - and the then Prime Minister made clear not only that the British people would have their say on the EU constitution, but that if the constitution were rejected he would not sign up to what was simply an amended version. At the time he said:

"We don't know what is going to happen in France, but we will have a referendum on the constitution in any event—and that is a government promise".

He went on to say:

"what you can't do is have a situation where you get a rejection of the treaty and then you just bring it back with a few amendments and say we will have another go".

But is that not exactly what is happening now? That is the deceit … This House is at the lowest ebb of my lifetime. People's contempt for our institutions and our Parliament is at a level that I have never perceived before. Why? Because we are not trustworthy. That is the truth. People do not believe what we say.

Then there was Austin Mitchell, another veteran. Amongst the things he had to say was:

… Most exciting of all was the revelation from my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, whom of course I strongly support, that next year we shall be facing 20 days of total futility. That is the promise that he has held out to us. We shall be discussing a constitution, which is called a treaty - the constitution that dares not speak its name - for 20 days, but we cannot make a single change to it. We cannot put in a full stop or a comma, and we cannot do anything about abhorrent apostrophes. I am already looking at holiday brochures and wondering whether the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association is having any decent trips that I can go on to get away from that discussion. The most futile exercise that we have had in this House will be fascinating.

There was then an intervention from Kelvin Hopkins:

I agree with my hon. Friend. It is rather like having marriage guidance after one has been divorced.

Austin Mitchell continued:

… What is the use of discussing something that we cannot change? It is important to amend this constitution, because it will be our constitution if it is passed - it will say what we can and cannot do, and it will take powers away from this place. It is thus important that we are able to have our say on it. It will make us part of a larger entity - a larger state - and it will close the door on that. That is what it is about. If we cannot change that and if we cannot put it to the people, we are futile and useless.

Then there was Gwyneth Dunwoody, responding to a comment by William Hague, about some detail of the treaty. She adds:

…Is he aware that we do not need any kind of change, because as we have recently seen with Galileo, it does not matter what the House of Commons thinks about particular items, if our views are to be totally ignored through the use of qualified majority voting?

So there we have it, but most eloquent is Austin Mitchell: "We are futile and useless". And, for the moment, he and the rest of us – we share the same feeling. But never under-estimate the power of sullen, smouldering resentment. The "colleagues" – Brown included – may have pulled a fast one, but we don't like it and will not let it stand.

Brown and the "colleagues" should remember Kipling and his poem on the advice of a dying Norman to his son. It goes in part:

"The Saxon is not like us Normans. His manners are not so polite. But he never means anything serious till he talks about justice right. When he stands like an ox in the furrow - with his sullen set eyes on your own, and grumbles, 'This isn't fair dealing', my son, leave the Saxon alone.

It continues:

"Appear with your wife and the children at their weddings and funerals and feasts. Be polite but not friendly to Bishops; be good to all poor parish priests. Say 'we,' 'us' and 'ours' when you're talking, instead of 'you fellows' and 'I'. Don't ride over seeds; keep your temper; and never you tell 'em a lie!"

Mr Brown goes to Lisbon on a lie – to join the "colleagues" in the perpetration of a lie. In our Kiplingesque way, we are left behind to mutter: "This isn't fair dealing". We know not how we will do it, and it matters not how long it takes, but we will extract our revenge.

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